Posts in this blog are provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. Use of included script samples are subject to the terms specified in the Terms of UseAre you interested in having a dedicated engineer that will be your Mic

Year: 2013

In Hyper-V versions prior to Windows Server 2012, a .bin file was created for each virtual machine, that was the exact same size as the memory allocated to the VM. This was to automatically reserve the disk space needed if you ever saved the state of the VM. It ensured that if you needed to…

I have a Surface RT device (the original) and absolutely love it. I use it every day. However, one of the challenges I have been dealing with was after the upgrade for Windows 8.1 came out, I noticed the battery is always dead when I picked it up. Before, I could go 3 to 5…

The following article will cover a basic install of Data Protection Manager 2012 R2. A dedicated DPM server, and shared SQL server will be deployed. This is to be used as a template only, for a customer to implement as their own pilot or POC, or customized deployment guide. It is intended to be general…

This is to be used as a template only, for a customer to implement as their own pilot or POC, or customized deployment guide. It is intended to be general in nature and will require the customer to modify it to suit their specific data and processes. This also happens to be a very typical…

Download: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=10631 On 10/14/2013 The SQL MP was updated. There is a huge number of updates, fixes, and new features that were released in this version (and the version which shipped in Sept 2013.) See the download link for all the updates, or the MP guide that ships with this version. SQL Server Management Pack…

The following article will cover a basic install of System Center Service Manager 2012 R2. The concept is to perform a limited deployment of SCSM, similar to our deployment guide on TechNet: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh519675.aspx The deployment guide on TechNet demonstrates Service Manager in a Two Server model (typical for lab and test environments), and a Four…

Once you deploy SCVMM, you will want to immediately deploy App Controller, as this is the Self-Service portal for Virtual Machine Manager in a private cloud scenario. App Controller is a lightweight web based interface to SCVMM based Private Clouds, and Windows Azure. It is very simple to deploy. It consists of a front end…

System Center Orchestrator 2012 is extremely easy to setup and deploy. There are only a handful of prerequisites, and most can be handled by the setup installer routine. The TechNet documentation does an excellent job of detailing the system requirements and deployment process: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh420337.aspx The following document will cover a basic install of System Center…

The following document will cover a basic install of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 R2 at a generic customer. This is to be used as a template only, for a customer to implement as their own pilot or POC deployment guide. It is intended to be general in nature and will require the customer…

There is already a very good deployment guide posted on TechNet here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh457006.aspx The TechNet deployment guide provides an excellent walkthrough of installing OpsMgr 2012 for the “all in one” scenario, where all roles are installed on a single server. That is a very good method for doing simple functionality testing and lab exercises. The…

Grooming of the OpsDB in OpsMgr 2012 is very similar to OpsMgr 2007. Grooming is called once per day at 12:00am…. by the rule: “Partitioning and Grooming” You can search for this rule in the Authoring space of the console, under Rules. It is targeted to the “All Management Servers Resource Pool” and is part…

Update Rollup 3 (UR3) for OpsMgr 2012 SP1 shipped originally several months back. I took a cautious approach to this update, as there were some components pulled early for DPM (all have been resolved). Does not look like anything was an issue in SCOM, beyond the known issues documented at the bottom of this article. …

Ok, not really an upgrade, but more of “replacement”. With the release of Windows Server 2012 R2 to MSDN which was recently announced HERE, it is time for me to upgrade my lab domain controllers to Windows Server 2012 R2. I started by first “upgrading” my Hyper-V hosts to Windows Server 2012 R2. This would…

A time may come when you need to migrate your existing DHCP services to new servers/hardware. Windows Server 2012 ships with powershell cmdlets to make this a simple transition. You can read about the process here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/teamdhcp/archive/2012/09/11/migrating-existing-dhcp-server-deployment-to-windows-server-2012-dhcp-failover.aspx I have two DHCP servers (Windows Server 2012) in a failover configuration, leveraging the new capabilities in failover…

Microsoft has announced this date, and Brad Anderson announced this publically today on his blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/in_the_cloud/archive/2013/08/14/mark-your-calendars-for-oct-18-the-r2-wave-is-coming.aspx On that day, consumers and businesses will have access to Windows 8.1, and eligible customers will have access to Windows Server 2012 R2, System Center 2012 R2, and the latest updates for Windows Intune. To keep…

My lab consists of 2 Dell Precision T7500 workstations, each configured with 96GB of RAM. These are each nodes in a Hyper-V 2012 cluster. They mount cluster shared volumes via iSCSI, some are SSD, and some are SAS RAID based disks, from a 3rd Dell Precision Workstation. One of the things I have experienced,…

There is a new community driven MP available for monitoring Hyper-V and Virtual Machines on Windows Server 2012, for OpsMgr 2012. http://hypervmpe2012.codeplex.com/ This management pack goes beyond the very basic Microsoft Hyper-V MP, and has the following monitoring features: VMs Integration Services Version monitor Hyper-V Replica Health Monitoring Dashboard and States SMB…

One of my Server 2012 machines kept hanging, and it was more than annoying. The system is a Dell Precision 690 Workstation, with dual Xeon CPU’s, and has the Hyper-V role installed. This machine uses an Intel storage controller and has an addition Dell SAS/SATA controller. Primarily, I use this machine as my…

You can download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39062 This article is based on version 6.0.7033.0 of the MP. What’s new? All workflows are implemented using PowerShell to improve overall functionality for this Management Pack. Failover Relationships are now a supported configuration that is being discovered and monitored by the new 2012 Management Pack. Discovery…